Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1887-09-29
ACCIDENTAL INVENTIONS.
Origin OF the Bayonet, tho Telescope and
the Art of IIthosranhIn~.

- ~ -tN 49,
Origin of the Bayonet. the Telescope and
the Art of LithOgraphing.
The bayonet is said to have derived
its name from the fact that it was first
made at Bayonne, and its origin illus
trates the proverb, Necessity is the
mother of invention. A Basque regi-
ment was hard pressed by the enemy
on a mountain ridge near Bayonne.
One of the soldiers suggested that, as
their ammunition was exhausted, they
should fix their long knives into the
barrels of their muskets. The sugges-
ton was acted upon. The first bayonet
charge WAS made, and the victory OF
the Basques led to the manufacture OF
the weapon at Bayonne and its adopt
ion into the armies of Europe. Not I'M
frequently an invention has been sug-
gested by some trivial event, which
would have passed unnoticed had not
man with eyes and brains seen it.
Argand, poor Swiss, invented
lamp with wick fitted into hollow
cylinder, up which a current of air
was allowed to pass, thus giving a sup
ply of oxygen to the interior as well
as to the exterior of the circular flame.
At first Argand used the lamp without
a glass chimney. One day he was
busy in his wOrkroom, and sitting be-
fore the burning lamp. His little
brother was amusing himself by plac-
ing bottomless oil flash over different
articles. Suddenly he placed it upon
the flame of lamp, which instantly
shot up the long, circular neck of the
flask with increased brilliancy. 1t did
more; for it flashed into Argand's mind
the idea of the lamp-chimney, by
which his invention was perfected.
One day the children of a Dutch
spectacle-maker were playing with sew
eral of their fathers glasses before the
door of his shop. Setting two
of the largest glasses together,
they peeped through them and
were surprised to see the weather-cock
of the opposite church brought close to
their eyes. They called their father to
see the strange sight. He looked
through the glasses, and what he saw
suggested to him the possibility of con-
structing a curious toy. Calico, hear
ing of the toy which made distant
things appear close at hand, saw at
once what valuable help it would be
in studying the heavens. He set to
work and soon made the telescope.
An accident, that is the happening of
something which was not planned, has
often helped to an invention. 1t helped
Senefelder to invent TYPOGRAPHY. He
was a sort of Observation-Disclosures VIZ
ter of verses and comedies, an actor, a
fiddler, a painter, an ergraver and
printer. He worked at etching on cop
per, but the coppersmith refused to let
him have any more plates unless he
paid cash for them. He then tried to
utilize the old plates by rubbing off tho
etchings with Il soft limestone. At last
the copper became useless through
many rubbings, and he tried etching or
the stone, plan that did not work very
well. One day, while he was polishing
off a stone which he intended to etch,
his mother asked him to write out a list
of the linen which the washerwoman
was waiting TO carry off. Not tindinga
slip of paper or drop of ink, he wrote
the list on the stone, with printing ink
prepared from wax, soap and lamp
black, intending to copyit ut his leisure.
A few days after be was about to wipe
the writing from the stone. Suddenly
he thought he would learn what would
be the effect of writing with the pre-
pared ink on the stone, if it should be
bitten in with aquafortis. He bit away
to about the hundredth part of an inch,
charged the lines with the ink, took
severals impressions of the writing and
1;-oo1,a,.o1 hot ha ha6 it1r-aYota1 tho IF
of lithographing.-Youth'S COMPANION.